


But the Story is This

by TheMarvelousMadMadamMim



Series: A Summer in Cintra [9]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: F/M, Final Installment, a summer in cintra, family bonding time, just otp being soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24097090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMarvelousMadMadamMim/pseuds/TheMarvelousMadMadamMim
Summary: As they take another family outing to the river, Calanthe takes time to reflect on how her life has changed--and allows herself to simply be.An epilogue, of sorts.
Relationships: Calanthe Fiona Riannon & Pavetta, Calanthe Fiona Riannon/Eist Tuirseach
Series: A Summer in Cintra [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658368
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	But the Story is This

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so I really wanted this series to end with a sense of closure for both Eist and Calanthe, and while the previous story definitely has that for Eist, I didn't feel like we got the same from Cal. 
> 
> Also I just wanted to further explore a headcanon I've had since the first time I saw episode four, re: Calanthe's near manic-panic during Pavetta's betrothal feast, which seemed to be sparked by an overwhelming sense of her own impending mortality (seriously, go watch--literally within the first actual minute of her entering the great hall, she mentions her own death twice).
> 
> So here we are: introspection, fluff, and family time. Enjoy.

Calanthe can sense that Eist is already awake, before she even opens her eyes. With a wry smile, she asks, “What?”

Something light, foreign, slips over the apple of her cheek. She opens her eyes, frowning and squinting slightly as her eyes adjust to the bright morning light.

A small leaf, between his fingertips.

“Apparently you brought back souvenirs,” he notes drolly. Clarifying, he adds, “It was in your hair.”

She hums at that, stretching her arms overhead and rolling to face the man in her bed. He’s on his side, a hand propped under his head, watching her with idle affection.

He smiles softly as he brushes the leaf down the length of her nose. She simply watches him, watching her.

The world feels beautiful and honey-slow, in moments like this. She hasn’t always felt so at-ease, so certain in the knowledge that they can take their time, and it makes her cherish the feeling all the more.

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

She frowns, not sure exactly what she’s being thanked for.

“My surprises.” His voice is so soft, it pushes a blush into her chest.

“Don’t…thank me,” she breathes, throat suddenly going tight. “I…I didn’t do it for gratitude.”

He chuckles lightly at that, arching his brow. _No, I suppose you got far more than gratitude, in the end_.

She shakes her head slightly, still serious, “Eist. I mean—I didn’t do it because I wanted you to feel…beholden. Or as if I were indulging you, like some spoiled child. I did it because you deserve such things, always.”

He smiles softly. She’s so earnest, so desperate for him to understand. Her hair is still a mess, there’s still kohl in the creases underneath her eyes, she’s got a broken, bitten lip from last night, and she’s humming with a shining-eyed urgency, brimming with all the words that are always so hard for her mouth to express, even if they’re always in her actions, in her heart and its intents.

Even now, in the quiet softness of their bed, she’s chaos, and she calls him in. He shifts closer, kissing her gently.

“I understand,” he says quietly. She sinks a bit further into the mattress, as if suddenly heavy with relief.

He isn’t quite sure what he’s ever done to deserve the things that she believes he does, but he does understand her conviction. After all, he feels the same for her.

He lightly pushes her onto her back again, sliding closer to kiss his way across her chest. She closes her eyes, feeling languid and content, knowing he truly does understand her imperfect words.

She thinks of how differently her life would have been, if she’d known him, back when she was seventeen and being forced into marriage. If they’d married, all those years ago.

They’d probably both be dead by each other’s hand, she thinks wryly. Long before they even reached thirty. They’re barely mellow enough now to withstand each other, sometimes.

It wouldn’t be as grand, she decides. Their love, if it wasn’t so long-awaited, so hard-won. She doesn’t mind the wait nor the fight, and she knows he doesn’t either, despite his occasional jokes to the contrary.

They make up for lost time, just fine. For perhaps the first time in her life, Calanthe doesn’t feel as if there’s a clock, counting down the minutes of her life.

In this moment, in this bed, with this man, time slows and stretches. It is no longer finite and fleeting. It is certain and steady, and deliciously, perfectly paced, like the path of his lips down her body.

They have time. She has time. She is safe, she can embrace it all and relish it. _Time_. They have time.

* * *

Exactly no one was surprised when, right after breakfast, Ciri cried to go swimming. She even threw in a stuttering little stomp, tiny fists tight and shaking with frustration.

Eist had spared a look at his wife, _My, looks familiar_.

She had tamped down a smile and arched her brow, _Tread lightly, hound._

Duny is already off for Erlenwald again, ostensibly to see the preparations for the first fall harvest at the end of the month. Not that Calanthe mourns his absence—she counts it sheer good luck that he’s never joined them down at the river, and she’d like to keep it that way.

She doesn’t know if it’s supposed to be that way, between in-laws. Roegner’s parents had been so far beneath her socially that she’d barely interacted with them besides seeing them on the day of her wedding. And her own mother was already a distant thing, never truly connecting with Roegner, either.

Duny’s parents are long since gone, as well, which means Pavetta has no mother- or father-in-law to contend with, either. And Eist’s family are pleasant enough, enjoyed in small, distant doses.

But she doesn’t know how extended families work, when they’re in daily orbit around each other. Hell, half the time she still doesn’t know how her own biological family works, and it only contains her, Pavetta, and Ciri.

They’ll figure it out, eventually, she decides. After all, Eist and Pavetta get along quite well—though they’d known each other for years before becoming family, so perhaps that helps. And their first meeting certainly wasn’t as…tense as Calanthe and Duny’s.

Not that she’s screamingly desperate to befriend her son-in-law. She can be civil, and that seems to be enough—and as long as that is enough to keep Ciri and Pavetta at her side, then that’s all she cares about.

All she cares about—truly, in the realm of human connections—is currently trudging across the field towards the river. Pavetta has the book that Eist brought back from Skellige for her; she’ll probably start reading it as soon as she sits down on the bank. Ciri is currently squirming in her beloved Granfer’s arms, lightly patting the stubble on his cheeks with her chubby hands and generally trying to garner every ounce of his attention, despite his attempts to continue chatting with Pavetta.

Poor man, so greatly outnumbered, she thinks wryly. Somehow, she knows he doesn’t mind it a bit. He’s using his free hand to motion as he describes something to Pavetta, moving leisurely through the tall grasses, perfectly at-ease and in-place amongst the background and focal points of her life.

She hadn’t always been so sure that he’d fit into her life so perfectly. She distinctly remembers the morning after their wedding, waking up and truly realizing what had happened the night before. The pure jolt of terror, the fear that somehow, she’d actually ruined everything, rather than finally fixing it.

Eist had awakened soon after, and quite quickly after that, he’d thoroughly distracted her from such thoughts. Some things never changed, she realizes with a smirk.

It’s his great gift, she thinks. The ability to detach and move away from a situation, while still giving it the proper thought and weight it deserved. He gives it to her as well, whenever he’s here with her. He teaches her how to step back, how to wait instead of immediately striking (that lesson isn’t always remembered, and they’ve both accepted that certain parts of her will never change). He distracts her when she needs it, and listens to her rants and ramblings when she needs to focus on the matter at hand. And in between he makes time stop, giving her time to be soft and to crumble, time to reclaim herself, to create her own life outside the expectations of crown and kingdom.

Time. They have time. She was so afraid of running out of time, when she was Pavetta’s age. But then again, she’d faced death more times by then, too, and was therefore much more aware of her own mortality.

The clawing, anxious feeling had calmed down some after Pavetta’s birth, but kicked back up when Pavetta turned fifteen—because Calanthe had reached the age her husband had been, when the plague struck him down. The age her own father had been, when he died and left her queen. Barely a few years older than her grandfather had been, when he died as well. Only a few years younger than her great-grandfather had been at the time of his death.

Longevity has never been a fate of House Raven, it seems. Calanthe had felt every ounce of that fate upon her shoulders.

Time became extremely finite, then. The sense of a looming clock overhead. The need to set everything to rights, while she still had time. The rushing anxious urgency to make sure Pavetta was better prepared, better protected than she had ever been, when she was tossed onto the throne. To give her more options, a better life than Calanthe was given, up until she finally grew strong enough to demand the life she wanted for herself (and even that only came after her husband’s death, damn this world and its structure).

Then, the revelation of Pavetta’s gift. The sudden understanding that Pavetta was stronger than Calanthe could ever be, in some ways. Far more untouchable, far more protected than Calanthe could ever ensure through any marriage or alliance (or even assassination of certain obstacles).

And then, Eist. Eist, who calms her just as much as he stirs her, who reminds her that she still has time, still has the ability to choose her own destiny. Eist, who makes her laugh and makes her sigh in the best of ways, who keeps her young and playful and—for the first time in a long, long time—truly eager for the future.

“Lie-na!” The future calls to her, wriggling in Eist’s grasp, propping her elbows on his shoulder and leaning towards her. “Lie-na, come!”

She grins, gladly obeying her tiny overlord.

“Thank goodness they’re predicting a lazy autumn,” Pavetta comments, once Calanthe joins them. “That gives us a few extra weeks of river trips—though I don’t know what we’ll do when it’s too cold.”

“It’s never too cold to be near water,” Eist points out. “She can walk along the bank, throw in rocks and twigs. Play in the mud. Be a kid.”

Calanthe hums as she considers the idea. Her hand comes up, lightly rubbing the small of his back. _What will we do, when we can’t have our swims, either?_

He merely grins over at her. She understands that he’ll think of something to take away the sting of losing her beloved river. She feels a small ripple of curiosity, with a dash of anticipation.

For now, they have several more weeks of their late-night swims, and that’s good enough. For now, they have time.

* * *

Now that Ciri knows Calanthe can swim, there’s no way she gets in the water without both grandparents. Pavetta stays ashore and reads, though soon enough she’s tempted into the water as well—or more aptly heckled and cajoled, by both her mother and her daughter, as her step-father simply laughs at their antics. She keeps her shift and corset and wades in, rolling her eyes even as she smiles at Ciri’s cheers of delight.

Calanthe reaches out to help her over the rocks, and Pavetta lets her, even though she’s perfectly capable of navigating it on her own. She’s learning to let her mother love her, in her own unspoken way. Calanthe is silently grateful for the understanding, lets herself be soft enough to pull Pavetta closer, placing a quick-but-gentle kiss on her temple and patting her shoulder.

Soon Ciri is regaling her audience with her abilities to blow bubbles in the water. Eist teaches her how to spew it out of her mouth like a fountain as well, much to Pavetta and Calanthe’s dismay.

“Behavior entirely unbefitting a lady,” Calanthe decrees.

“As if you would know,” Pavetta snarks, and Calanthe turns to her daughter in mild surprise.

Eist hoots at that, and Ciri giggles, unsure of the joke but still eager to laugh with everyone else.

“Mind your tongue.” Calanthe flicks her hand over the water, just enough to send a spatter into Pavetta’s face. Pavetta gasps, hands fluttering round her face as she blinks away the water..

Then, with a firm set of her mouth, Pavetta retaliates with greater force, using the full length of her arm for a wide, hard, sweeping arc of a wave. Calanthe ducks and throws up an arm, but she still gets soaked. Ciri claps and screeches delightedly.

Pavetta quickly takes her daughter from Eist’s arms, holding her up like a shield.

“Oh, that’s a dirty move,” Calanthe calls, both impressed and irritated by her daughter’s cleverness.

“She’s her mother’s daughter,” Eist comments dryly. This earns him a frown from his wife. Pavetta grins, as if rather proud of the claim, and Calanthe’s chest tightens. Despite their current peace, she’d long given up on the idea that Pavetta could ever be proud of her again, could ever want to be known as her child, could ever see something in Calanthe worthy of emulating, or really, anything worthy at all. Even in a moment as silly as this, it quietly means the world to her.

Ciri kicks out happily, soaking her grandmother even more.

“Cirilla!” Calanthe gasps in feigned outrage. This has no effect on the child, who cackles like the little madcap that she is.

Calanthe splashes back, though with far less force, only enough to reach up to Ciri’s chest, not her face. Ciri squeals again, delighted to start a war.

“Also a bit like her grandmother,” Eist points out. Calanthe elbows him slightly at that.

He sees his chance, and takes it—wrapping Calanthe in his arms, holding her up so that her feet can’t touch the riverbed, calling out for Ciri to splash Lie-na again.

Her traitorous granddaughter gladly obliges, and over the din, Calanthe hears Pavetta’s giggles as well.

A family-led assassination, it seems. She grips at Eist’s arms, still rock hard around her, wriggling in an attempt to get free while also shielding her face from the onslaught of water.

Eist feels the way his wife turns a bit in his arms, as if trying to escape, and he easily turns his whole body as well, shielding her for a moment. She’s laughing breathlessly, turning to nuzzle her forehead against his cheek.

“Arse,” she whispers, careful that her granddaughter doesn’t hear, yet again. Though that ship has certainly set sail.

He merely shifts, kissing her temple. She tightens her grip on his arms, squeezing out the tightness she feels in her chest, the solid reassurance of his body around hers, the simple happiness of hearing Pavetta and Ciri’s giggles as they continue to splash.

“I’m sorry, my love,” he murmurs, pressing his lips against her ear in a half-kiss. “It’s every man for himself.”

With that, he dunks her under.

She comes up with a shriek, “Eist!”

“Eist!” Ciri echoes, delighted. “Stop it!”

There is no conviction to her words, though apparently she’s heard them often enough to repeat them.

“Listen to your granddaughter,” Calanthe points at him. He’s currently swimming backwards, putting more distance between them. “Do not start a war that you cannot possibly win.”

“Lie-na!” Ciri distracts her, reaching for her eagerly. Calanthe easily swims forward, taking her granddaughter into her arms and kissing her cheek, murmuring low assurances like, “It’s a rather good thing you’re cute, little imp.”

Pavetta takes a slow look towards Eist, who seems to be deliberately moving closer.

“Don’t you dare,” she holds up a hand, so much like her mother that it makes him laugh.

“I have to avenge my wife,” he explains.

“Nothing you can do will ever win my favor again,” Calanthe decrees, arching her brow imperviously and setting them both with a stony look. She holds Ciri tighter, turning to put her shoulder between her granddaughter and the other two traitors. “I renounce you both. It’s me and Ciri, from now on.”

Pavetta and Eist both roll their eyes at that, not even bothering to dignify it with a response. Pavetta turns back to Eist to make a quip, only to be greeted with a faceful of water.

“I told you,” Eist points out, to his credit.

Pavetta gives small growl of irritation that devolves into a breathless giggle as she retaliates.

“They’re both mad,” Calanthe tells Ciri, fingertips lightly brushing the blonde strands of hair plastered to her forehead.

“Big splash!” Ciri declares delightedly. She’s apparently narrating the action, because when Eist pushes a large wave Pavetta’s way, using both arms, Ciri gasps, eyes wide and eager. “So many big splash!”

Then Ciri turns back to her grandmother, little hand lightly patting on the water’s rippling surface. “Splash, Lie-na, splash!”

Well, she can’t deny her own granddaughter, can she? She turns back toward the fray, smile blossoming and heart surging at the sight before her.

Roegner never truly played with Pavetta, never went beyond the basics of fatherhood, though they relationship always seemed amicable enough. Looking back with the full knowledge of hindsight, Calanthe supposes that he always knew that she was going to be claimed, and therefore didn’t let himself get too attached. Though, she supposes, her own understanding of the relationship between fathers and daughters isn’t the strongest.

Calanthe’s own father had been a good, kind man, throughout her childhood—and when he was happy, oh, everyone was. He would play with her, tease her too-big teeth, or hug her so tightly that she’d squirm and protest while secretly adoring it, or put her feet on top of his so that they could waltz around room, eventually lifting her off her feet entirely as they spun faster and faster, madder and madder until some inevitable collapse or collision. As she grew older, he would sit and have much more serious conversations with her—always preparing her for the day she would be queen, though it came far sooner than either expected.

By her preteen years, though, things had shifted between them. She wasn’t his darling little girl anymore, wasn’t so easily tractable—she had a mind of her own and a mouth more than sharp enough to speak it, and her father never really knew how to handle that. After Pavetta, she understood.

But at the time, if felt bewildering, and infuriating. Wanting to be her independent self and still desperately wanting to be coddled and adored. She often broke the rules, and he punished her by withdrawn silence, so then she’d act even more horribly, desperate to garner his attention once more, by any means possible.

She’d immediately regret her actions, but was always too proud to admit it. Those were the black days—the times when she’d find any excuse not to come into his presence, fearful of his biting tongue and his eye that always found fault. One day, she was his darling; the next, his greatest disappointment.

Eventually, he’d simply forgive her, without any words at all. One day, she'd walk into the room and he'd smile when he saw her, like the sun returning after a long, dark winter. Then they’d move on, until the next outburst, the next rejection, the next awful, vicious turn on the wheel. The anxious, sick feeling of entering his presence every day, not knowing which role she would be cast in, still slithers through her gut sometimes at the mere memory, though it's been nearly a quarter of a century.

Then, he was gone. Gone before she truly knew him, gone before she truly knew herself, gone before they could ever find a way to be amicable and balanced and right again—before they even knew if they _could_ find a way.

But this… _this_ looks amicable and balanced and right. More like what it should be. Pavetta doesn’t fear Eist, their relationship is filled with respect and even something akin to friendship, and though they’ve certainly held rather heated discussions over a few matters at the dinner table or in the queen’s private study, there’s never the heavy tension of sulking or withholding. And in the end, they’re still here, laughing and splashing like two kids, happy and shining in the summer sun.

Family, she realizes. They’re family. They’re how a family is supposed to be. And they’re hers. She is part of this golden and good thing, with all her heart.

The bank is behind them, with an open, unobstructed view of the field that leads back to Cintra, its towers rising in the distance.

The city and its castle seem like a world away. She thinks again of last night—looking up to the heavens, and thinking she was somehow part of a brand new world, just her and Eist.

Maybe it’s a little bigger than just the two of them, she realizes.

But it’s still part of the strange new thing she’s begun to create with him, the part of her life truly carved out for herself, the part that will never be recorded in any history book, will never be idealized in ballad or held up for scrutiny and discussion by lesser minds with far too much time on their hands.

Maybe, she thinks, maybe this _is_ the beginning of the world, somehow. At the very least, the beginning of their very own.

And it is truly only the beginning—they have time, so much time. Time to build more, to solidify and grow and shift under the slow march of days to months to years. She kisses her granddaughter again, wading closer to the others.

For now, she’ll enjoy the moment. Yes, there is time, there will be time—and right now, in this space of time, she can simply be here, with them. In the madness and the joy and the safety of it all, simply at peace.

Eist’s hair is soaked, plastered to his forehead in whorls and curls, and her chest tightens at how ridiculously happy he looks, cherry-cheeked and laughing. She wants to laugh, from the sheer giddy feeling he creates—instead, she instructs Ciri to kick water in his face, grinning at his dramatic reaction to her betrayal.

Later, Pavetta and Ciri retreat to the bank, where Ciri dozes off on a cloak and Pavetta continues reading her book. Again, Calanthe feels a little flutter of joy for the way Eist smiles when he sees Pavetta reading, the mixture of pride and triumph in his features.

Calanthe and Eist stay in the water, lazily swimming in circles or floating on their backs. Eventually Calanhte can’t resist, can’t stand to not be near him, and she swims up behind him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and nuzzling into the nape of his neck. His hands stay over her forearms, keeping them crossed over his chest. He slowly walks through the water, trailing her along behind him. She places a small, open-mouthed kiss on his shoulder and then closes her eyes, simply enjoying the feeling of drifting, being pulled along by him.

His fingertips lightly trill over the ridges of her knuckles, soft and steady. She thinks she could fall asleep like this. Then his hands come to her wrists, gently breaking her hold so that he can pull her around to face him, her whole body arcing out with the pull of the current. It feels like flying, like floating, like the kind of magic she’d hoped to possess as a little girl.

He brings her closer again and she puts her feet on the riverbed, grabbing his hips and using them as an anchor to pull herself closer. His back is turned to Pavetta and Ciri, neither of whom are aware of them anyways—it’s the perfect shield for her to kiss his bare chest, deepening the touch with teeth and tongue. He hums, the sound reverberating against her mouth and sending warmth all the way down to her toes.

_This_ is their story, she decides. Not the one sung about in ballads, not the entries recorded upon the scrolls detailing her reign, not the rumors that still swirl around them and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives and far beyond. Not the one that anyone else knows or has heard.

This is their story, written in the quiet, secret moments. Theirs and theirs alone. She looks up at him, grinning a bit breathlessly to find that he’s already looking down at her in that soft, adoring way that never fails to stop her lungs.

She turns her head slightly as he wraps his arms around her again, gently swaying her with the pull of the current. They drift a bit, simply enjoying the sunshine and the silence. She closes her eyes, presses a bit closer, to better hear the steady beat of his heart. It’s slow, each soft thump a gentle reminder: she can take her time. She has time to take.

She opens her eyes again, commits it all the memory. The sunlight on the water, the green of the trees, the aching beauty of Pavetta's profile as she leans over her book, the almost-white wisps of Ciri’s hair, lifting and dancing in the breeze. The sound of Eist’s heart and the slight shifts of his body beneath the water, the steady strength of his arms around her and the constant sense of warmth it brings.

Time, time, time. She feels it stretch before her, rushing out like the beautiful swaying fields around them, rising up like the spires of her beloved city.

They have all the time in the world—in the world they’ve made, just for each other. In the story they’ve written, in secret ink, like a love letter, for their eyes only.

They have each other, and they have time. Her heart soars with certainty. She closes her eyes again, allows herself to simply be, here, with him.


End file.
